US envoy: Trump embassy move is his ‘most popular’ decision with American public
Relocating the embassy to Jerusalem earns president ‘the biggest applause’ when he speaks around the US, says David Friedman, hours before inauguration ceremony
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US Ambassador David Friedman told an audience in Jerusalem on Monday that President Donald Trump’s decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem is proving to be the president’s most popular decision to date with the American public.
As he speaks around the country ahead of the mid-term elections, the president’s “biggest applause lines he gets every time is when he reminds people he’s moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Friedman said at a breakfast hosted by the Orthodox Union, hours before the US was to inaugurate its embassy in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood. “It is the single most popular thing he has done, and the encouragement from the entire American community is more than heartwarming.”
Friedman praised Trump for his “courage, vision, strength and moral clarity.”
The ambassador explained that Americans support the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital for two reasons.
For “those of us who are emotionally, intellectually, politically connected to Israel, of course this is something we have been waiting for for 70 years,” he told the invited guests. “But even those in the American community who are not as connected to the State of Israel, they applaud the president’s decision because they applaud the United States when it returns to the leadership of the world, when it returns to moral clarity, when it returns to truth, when it supports its allies including its best friend and ally, the State of Israel. These are the values the people of the United States hold dear.”
Delighting the Israeli government, but angering Palestinians who claim the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state, Trump announced on December 6, 2017, that he was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would move the US embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.
On Monday afternoon, the move was set to take place with a celebratory ceremony hosted by Friedman, attended by a large US delegation and hundreds of dignitaries, amid the threat of Palestinian unrest both in the capital and in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Times of Israel Community.